Thursday, September 24, 2009

I posted my latest custom on the October Toy Forums for the folks there to see. Here he is for the folks who read my blog:

I posted the following pictures showing what all went into the making of the figure. I hope this helps anyone who would like to make their own customs. Part of the process of making really interesting customs is being able to see potential parts in production figures. I spend a LOT of time researching what figures are out, what they look like at all angles, and how much they cost.

Here's a diagram of the figure with the individual parts marked by number:

1. The mask from an ARF Trooper from the Animated Star Wars Clone Wars line.

2. The head from a Slice from the GI Joe Valor Vs Venom line.

3. Shoulder pad and strap from an Iron Grenadier from the GI Joe 25th Anniversary line.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

So I was in town today mailing packages (again) and ran across these guys in my local Dollar General:

They're from a line of toys called M.A.R.S. Heroes from a company called Hap-P-Kid Toy. I've purchased a few of these M.A.R.S. figures before, but this is a new kinda deal.

The figures come in a set of 3 with assorted accessories for $5.00

A fiver for all this aint bad at all:

You get 3 handguns, 6 shoulder attachments, and 4 bases that are interchangeable. The bases are soft, translucent vinyl with painted details. The guns are PVC and are a bit harder than the bases, but both are pretty flexible. They are nowhere near as bad as the floppy guns Hasbro has been using with their figures in the last few years.

Each figure is made up of 9 pieces, and each piece is connected by a common ball and socket joint.

This means you can interchange the parts between the figures to make cust9om built figures. The torsos and the upper thighs are made of harder ABS plastic, and all the other parts are softer PVC. This means the joints probably won't wear out as easily as the older M.A.R.S. figures. The only major differences between these and the older figures is the size and the loss of the elbow joint. The older figures' arms were made in two parts with a ball joint at the elbow. These have one-piece arms, but the ball jointed shoulders allow for enough flexibility that the figures can double grip weapons.

They're a smidge shorter than Star Wars figures, but since they could be used as droids it could work out.

They fit in rather nicely with Glyos figures and would look great in a display with them.

As an added bonus, the weapons fit in Glyos figure hands, so you now have cheap handguns for your Glyos guys!

All in all these guys are pretty nice figures!

Even if they were selling for 5 bucks each they'd be a very, very good buy in today's toy marketplace. The fact that you can get 3 of them for that price plus extra accessories is excellent beyond words! Sure they don't have ball jointed elbows, but if that's the biggest complaint I can find with them, then everything's Kool and the Gang, baby.

Monday, September 14, 2009

These are the standard Clone Trooper action figures from the animated Clone Wars series. Every figure in this series of action figures is stylized to match the look of the CGI cartoon. They are AWESOME. I don't really care too much for the rest of the figures in the series mainly because I'm not fond of the cartoon designs, but the Clone Troopers are so darn close to looking like the actual Clones from the movies that they work for me quite nicely. That, and these are some excellent figures in almost every category.

These guys are articulated out the wazoo. Ball-joints are present at almost every articulation point. They are super expressive and can hold their weapons and look pretty much like real people holding weapons.

There's just one thing that they can't do:

The Splits.

All these super awesome ball-joints everywhere and no ball-jointed hips. These guys can't even sit down worth a darn. The first Star Wars figures came out in 1977. It has been over 30 years, and we're still dealing with action figures with simple cut-articulated hips. GI Joe figured this little hitch out from day one. Hasbro's long-standing defense of this practice was always "Giving these characters ball-jointed hips would damage the aesthetic of the character design." Yeah. Right.

Hasbro just made up for a LOT of sins with the ARF Trooper.

Do I know what an ARF Trooper is? Not really. From the packaging it says that these guys ride some kind of two-legged un armored scout vehicle. Who gives a crap... all I know is...

These guys have all the articulation and design qualities that I value in the standard Clone Troopers and...

Did you ever have a 3.75 inch tall Stormtrooper that could do that? Me neither!!! HEEEEYAH!

He stands much, much more naturally than the regular troopers and you can pose him in some pretty darn awesome stances:

I'm not the biggest fan of the helmet on this monkey, but thankfully...

The heads are interchangeable!

So... if you like Stormtroopers/Clonetroopers, smaller scaled figures, and awesome articulation... go grab an ARF Trooper while they are still on the shelves.

It costs too darn much to buy a 3.75 inch figure these days, but you can't really do anything about that-- the price will never be going down again now that they know dorks like us will buy them for that much. However, this is one of those rare cases where I bought something at retail price and didn't feel a bit let-down.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

On the way back from DragonCon I stopped at Toys R Us to see if there were any good things on clearance. There weren't. >:(

I did, however, snag this extremely cool guy for 16.99:

MechaGodzilla (or Kiryu, as he's known to our Japanese friends) stands about 12 inches tall and is made of rotocast vinyl. He has 5 points of articulation (head, arms, waist, and tail), but makes up for lack of articulation with a neverending supply of solid awesome.

You really can't beat that price, as most 12 inch vinyl kaiju figures (that's what they call giant monsters in Japan) from Japan will set you back easily twice that price. Heck, some 4 inchers can run you 40 bucks. Import fees are a mohfoh!

He looks great on a shelf, and looks even better menacing tiny figures.

As you can see here, he has already made fast friends with Reverse Pheyden from Onell Design.

At any rate, I love my Mechagodzilla, and I now want the Godzilla to go along with him. Too bad I live pretty far from the nearest Toys R Us, because that's about the only place you can find these guys!

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

I went to Atlanta's DragonCon this last weekend for the designer toys social and DunnyFest. Here are the pics I snagged. Taking pics was a hassle, because I was dragging around a heavy bag with stuff I wanted to get signed. I'm a dunderhead:

MOOLTEEPASS!!!

I'm Old Greeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeegg!!!! (he had a light-up mangina, btw)

Sorry for the blur on some of these, the lighting was not the best in the hotels. This guy was around 7 feet tall in his costume. The eyes glowed red sometimes. Crazy!

Dawn. They have a Dawn competition each year where a lotta ladies dress in skimpy clothes and paint tears on one side of their faces.

Gandalf's beard is weak compared to George's. To be fair, I haven't seen George in a dress before, so we don't know who wins that contest!

He's the Hero of Canton, I tells ya!!!

A Furry! Oh noes!

Master Beef!

Cougar Fairy!!!! Hubba hubba!

This dude's costume was the poop! It was all made out of mailing boxes, but it was lit up with battery charged lights, it had a tape player playing sound effects, and it even randomly fired party poppers when he posed. I love this man.

Faye Valentine from Cowboy Bebop. She had a tat on her arm of the poster for Labyrinth. I think I love her.

To the right we have the cutest Coraline at the convention. When my niece asked her if she could take her picture, she posed way better than any Hollywood starlett I have ever seen. To the left we see my friend Krakit's sleeve. Admittedly, his shirt was fierce and needed to have some madd props slung its way.

Hyper Alien Bob Marley All-Out Attack Battel!!!

This Snake Eyes was pretty cool... he was carrying all kinds of real armor plating and weaponry. And he could walk with those blinders on without falling down face-first-- even when I tried to trip him up with a trashcan multiple times!

Hyper Alien Bob Marley All-Out Attack Battel Part 2: The Final Revenge of That Guy With The Stuff!!!